https://sig2perspectives.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1758182CEU IntroductionThe articles in this issue describe what we have learned regarding the neurological bases of normal speech production from the techniques of magnetoencephalography (MEG), cortical stimulation mapping, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The first two methods have not been described in previous issues of the newsletter. They are some ...2003-10-01T00:00:00SIG NewsLinda I. Shuster

The articles in this issue describe what we have learned regarding the neurological bases of normal speech production from the techniques of magnetoencephalography (MEG), cortical stimulation mapping, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The first two methods have not been described in previous issues of the newsletter. They are some of the oldest technologies for studying brain function, with MEG being developed in the early 1980s and cortical stimulation mapping in awake humans being performed as early as 1909.

No matter how we observe human cognitive behavior, we can never completely isolate all of the various operations that are involved. For example, it is impossible to engage meaningful speech without also engaging language. Even simple tasks, such as object naming, clearly engage language as well as speech processes. Therefore, just as it can be difficult to determine where speech stops and language begins when diagnosing communication disorders, the distinction between the areas of the brain that are involved in speech and those that are involved in language can be difficult to establish. These issues notwithstanding, the authors of the papers in this issue have synthesized what we have been able to learn about speech itself from these three brain mapping techniques.